Apple Music's New Set List Playlists Could Divide Fans

There’s truly nothing like experiencing your favorite band or artist live. Whether it’s your first concert, the opportunity to hear tracks from their latest album, or, like me, joining 50,000 others to sing along to "Born to Run," the excitement is unparalleled.

Regardless, Apple aims to recreate that experience in some way, specifically with the setlist. Apple Music has introduced a new feature that allows musicians and bands to create playlists of their setlists and showcase them in the app.

In simple terms, emerging pop stars, folk artists, country singers, and musicians from various genres can now transform their setlists into playlists on Apple Music. This feature empowers artists by giving them more control. However, you may still notice Apple Music's editorial team curating playlists around themes like recent tour stops something I recall seeing for the Jonas Brothers.

In a shared guide titled "Promote Your Shows with Setlists" on the Apple Music for Artists site, Apple recommends linking your Apple Music Artists account with the concert-info website Bandsintown to automatically sync your upcoming show dates. When creating a playlist, you can select a new setlist option and specify the type of show, whether it’s part of a tour, a residency, or a one-off concert. You can then link it to an event on Bandsintown, which will import the list, or if you haven’t connected yet, you can manually enter a date but it must be at least one day in the future.

Using such tools, artists or bands will be able to create playlists of previous shows and future ones. The latter could be useful for tours with similar setlists, but either way, an artist can update the playlists after the fact with a pretty simple interface. 

Unlike the services like Nugs.net, which artists like Phish, Dead & Co, and Bruce Springsteen, among many others, use, these won't certainly be live cuts, but rather the studio version or whatever is available on Apple Music.

You might have strong feelings about artists posting setlists as playlists either you love it or you hate it. On one hand, it gives you a clear idea of what to expect, and for artists who switch things up or include surprise songs, you can easily follow the tour's performances through accessible audio on sites like Setlist.FM. On the other hand, there's the concern about spoilers.

TechRadar’s Mark Wilson is a regular gig-goer, and he told me that setlist playlists sound the equivalent of getting a big movie spoiler. "Part of the appeal of seeing live music for me is the element of surprise," he adds. "will I hear some classic deep cuts for the first time in years, or will the artist obstinately play the new album front to back? I’d rather find that out in real time rather than the day before in Apple Music."

The playlists go beyond just giving you a general idea of what to expect at an upcoming concert. Apple allows artists to create playlists for each show on their tour. I recently had to ask a friend to stop sharing Setlist.fm with me during gigs because it was accurately predicting not only the songs but also the exact running order.

These playlists might help some fans build excitement. However, one of my favorite musical memories was witnessing Radiohead play "The Handbrake" for the first time in a decade and perform songs from their first three albums. If Setlist playlists had existed back then, it wouldn't have been nearly as exhilarating.

I tend to agree with Mark's perspective, as it could take away from the experience, especially if you're catching a tour that's mostly consistent. For instance, if an artist posts one setlist or if they're updating it nightly, it could lead to a near play-by-play experience of the show. On the flip side, if I’ve already seen the performance, it might be interesting to witness the tour's evolution though that could lead to some serious gig-envy.

Either way, get ready to see these playlists showing up on Apple Music on the artist's or band's profile soon. And if you're not a fan of spoilers, just avoid clicking on the playlist.